


Oh Cruel Darkness

by Strickenized



Category: Dishonored (Video Games)
Genre: I Don't Even Know, M/M, i'll update tags to be useful at some point
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-21
Updated: 2017-02-21
Packaged: 2018-09-26 02:00:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,490
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9856883
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Strickenized/pseuds/Strickenized
Summary: A peculiar silvergraph leads to another grating task for an already tired Corvo. This one, however, seems far less straightforward than slipping in and murdering another Lord Regent.





	1. Silvergraph

**Author's Note:**

> Power went out for like three hours, so I started banging this out. It's kinda trash, but I'm kinda trash and if it's interesting enough to others I'll probably continue it!
> 
> This occurs between DH1 (post Brigmore Witches) and DH2.

The silvergraph arrived pristine, with only the barest mark on its unardorned packaging to indicate its prior check. On it went to the Lord Protector, and upon his desk it sat for two full days before he finally opened it. 

The latter years proved kind with their cessation from violence. Piero and Sokolov saw to the end of the Rat Plague, and Dunwall's population slowly burgeoned. Emily, now empress, continued to avoid her lessons from Callista. The temporary cabinet meted out rules and regulations at need, ever aware that Corvo waited for the first signs of treachery. Yet none came, to his relief, and while his worries surrounding young Emily's life never ceased, paranoia and mistrust died down to a dull, chthonic hum. Too few years had passed to allow him recovery from the deeds done at the Hound's Pit Pub, and a keloid of bitterness grew over the wounds. 

Corvo held few expectations as he opened the silvergraph envelope. He cared little for stills anymore - they reminded him too much of stopped time, of how he could see the seams between people if he stretched life farr enough apart - yet artists seeking favor saw him as a conduit into Emily's graces. Perhaps there was some truth to it; Sokolov received his patronage from Jessamine through him once. Seldom had Corvo surrendered the images to Emily anymore, as the young empress fostered far too many distractions from court affairs on her own. 

His mind wandered to Emily and her youthfulness while he pulled the heavy frame from its package. Her whimsy touched every heart he knew but one, and Corvo doubted the presence of a heart in the Void's entity. He brushed the thought from mind, however, and looked upon the careful undulations of silver in the scene. The careful sea rendered perfectly in grey tones, aglitter under the evening sun. Shadows pulled taut from their old frames, and rolled over toward the pier walks from the mouth of a low tunnel. Above it, the aged cords worn smooth by a thousand-thousand men hung between heavy posts, and beyond them, barrels sat with fine imports of Tyvian Red and other luxuries. Kingsparrow feathers sat upon one of the nearest boxes, and their shimmering shine drew his eye hypnotically. Below the row of boxes, the slow and steady curve of the tunnel betrayed its age with a few fallen stones, and a long crack running from its zenith to the bottom of the street. 

A youth stood half-obsured in shadow, with only bare legs showing beneath an overlong shirt. Silver touched the figure almost not at all, save for when shadow sought to envelop him. Initially, Corvo was uncertain of the gender, and even now he second-guessed masculinity in the androgynous form. As his eyes roamed to the face, he found little more than a splatter of black ink. Corvo frowned; he considered it unlike the postmaster to have so carelessly dashed ink over a letter. No — this was no accident. The placement proved too uncanny to have been born of serendipity. The Royal Protector straightened, and in turning over the frame, he loosed the silvergraph from its prison.

On the back, written as ever seen on the dirty underbelly of Dunwall, read a single familiar phrase: _the Outsider walks among us._ He recognized the handwriting, though he knew not from where.

Since Emily's reinstatement to the throne, they seldom found time together. Historians, tutors, politicians, nobles, ambassadors, and all manner of high courtly life swooped to intervene and impress upon the young empress their invaluable nature as a whisper in her ear. His relation to the empress proved a more dangerous secret in these new political upheavals, and thus he knew a safer place at the outskirts of her life. No longer did they face the threat of bodily harm, as politics instead inscribed their own war upon the Kaldwin succession. Was it folly to chase the lead of a silvergraph, so heavy-handed in its goading of him? Perhaps no worse than dogging Emily's every step in search of violence. 

Rationalizations followed afterward. He could use a break from palace life, he told himself. He recognized the Serkonan bridge in the silvergraph from when he spent his last night in Karnaca, he told himself. The restlessness following the recent coup needed its own resolution, he told himself. Or, perhaps he wanted to chase a little mystery. Magic ebbed, he found, when he failed to tread in darker spaces.

The morning chime of Dunwall Tower's many grandfather clocks found a note on Emily's tea table and a distinct absence of the Royal Protector. By the time dawn spread its filmy fingers over the horizon, the boat to Karnaca already departed. 

_The Ousider walks among us_ , he repeated to himself. Too near were the days when he first found meaning in the Abbey's Strictures. The first night spent walking amongst the Void did not easily fade from his mind. There, he found the temptations of which he heard many an Overseer whisper about when confiding in one another. Restless Hands, Roving Feet. Lying Tongue, Wanton Flesh. The Outsider presented each of these corruptions, and yet none of them - and the most insidious, derisive aspect of these otherworldly spectre was his propensity to open doors without a word of encouragement. Questions wrought more options to mind while bone charms and runes broadened his possibilities. The Outsider bade him power as a gift, and the word alone tasted of poison. 

Thinking of the Void's lone occupant landed Corvo in a foul mood, so he retired to the old bedrolls stowed under the deck. Even while the captain offered up the best room of the sailing vessel, Corvo found a measure of solace in the hard floors. Stale cigar smoke, moldering linens, and sea spray painted his last breaths of consciousness.


	2. A Favor, Dear Corvo

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Corvo investigates the silvergraph on location and finds an unwanted visitor with an unwanted favor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been a long time since I wrote an actual piece of fiction @_@

Day broke again on the Karnacan seas, drawing rivulets of gold and rose across the lilting tides. When he left so many years ago, Corvo expected never to return - and he made his peace with this understanding, then, and put to bed all nostalgic pulls for the southern star. Yet now he faced its shores once again, and nostalgic glee was soon reshaped in the crucible of ruddy memories. He remembered, keenly now, the overbaked days and rampant gambling. He recalled the Howler Monkeys, ever at odds with the Abbey presence on the island. The bridge he sought lay in the Dust District, by his own home, where the storms coming from the mines grew so severe that many fell ill and died from black lung. As the boat rolled close, he found he did not miss the city as much as he originally expected.

The years at Dunwall Tower fell away in all but his appearance, and Corvo adopted a purposeful stride toward one of the many horseless carriages driven by Sokolov's whale oil. He passed beggars, barterers, and bartenders alike in the crowded, dusty streets. Tans, reds, golds and roses each adorned the glittering fashion of the era while Gristol remained a perpetual undercurrent in pantsuits, fitted trousers and pocket watches. He passed each with no greeting; the common folk of Karnaca had no business knowing the skull mask that haunted Dunwall, it seemed. He felt the better for it, though he half-yearned to cause a stir - to feel a driving, blooded purpose again.

The ride to the Dust District proved uneventful. No thugs trying to upset the populace, no goings-on concerning the recent coronation of Emily as empress. Hardly did he hear talk of it in the baser parts of the city, but he expected as much - the poor and sick and hungry weren't bored enough to discuss politics amongst themselves. Only the high brow sported the privilege of boredom.

Soon he found the bridge in question, and he needn't seek the silvergraph to confirm it. He recognized with immediacy the great crack at the apex of its coiled arch, and the missing bricks over the top of the water's inlet. Two smooth sidewalks delved inward to form the beginnings of a sewer, and an underground trading network that assisted dock workers when the tide went out. Lately, it only housed rats and the ever-present bloodfly, occasionally river krusts. A danger, he was certain, though not for him.

As he stood there, peering into the darkness, he felt the burgeoning sense of magic and mystery peter out from his bones. The times grew long since he last heard the song of a bone charm, since he carried their familiar smoking heat against his person. He half-expected to feel it now, but found nothing. All he could connect to the silvergraph, beyond its precise location, was a painted sentence on the inside of the tunnel wall. Lighting proved too low in the exposure to show it, but he could read the milky, opalescent letters well enough in the midday sun. _The Outsider walks among us_ , it read. 

_Great,_ he thought. _It's just another uninspired title from another aspiring artist._

A figure lurched from deeper in the tunnel, staggering to its feet in the same lurching, lanky way that weepers often walked in their last days. Corvo raised his pistol with practice as he tried to banish the canny similarity to weepers from his mind. The Rat Plague ended, and he stood in Karnaca, now.

"Corvo," the voice said. Corvo cocked his pistol.

"How do you know my name?" No one in Karnaca should recognize anything of the mask, or his association behind it - not even those in Dunwall established the connection. No one even placed a face to the mysterious entity that systematically ended the reign of the Lord Regent and the following coup. He was so painfully, _dearly_ careful to keep all wanted posters sporting a large, nondescript question mark where his appearance should have lurked. Asking felt so futile. Asking felt like a half-measure when his finger waited on the trigger. 

"I've been watching you." The voice sounded familiar. It carried a dull, droning deadness that felt similarly taxed by life, like the owner was exhausted by the simple prospect of pumping blood, of breathing air. "I —"

"Then you need to die." Corvo abided no witnesses. He pulled the trigger

He pulled the trigger, and smoke billowed from the back of the gun. It buffeted outward and froze, like cloudy crystal, hanging over his arm. The bullet stopped an inch before the youth's chest, just before his heart, in a haunting silvergraph of their meeting. Time stopped, he knew. Time stopped, but he did not ask for that himself.

No, his mark remained cool and blackened against his skin. Unused.

Thin ivory hands came up to clasp around the offending bullet. While Corvo himself was aware of such potent magics, he never mastered quite enough of the spell to pluck objects out of their own time so easily. He knew, then, even before he saw the eyes.

He knew, and he still wanted to pull the trigger. He wanted to liberate a hundred bullets from his gun, all trained on the heart of the insidious creature that stood before him as a mockery of a beggar in the mockery of a human skin. The Abbey of the Everyman knew the Outsider better than he did without ever striking audience with the stark figure. And yet, now, after only the barest of years after the upheaval at Dunwall, the Outsider found the nerve to pull him back through time. To split the seams of life apart so they could look at all the magic left behind.

Hate was a strong word, and murder a strong action, but he felt that none better should serve the Outsider now.

The Outsider humored none of it. With the bullet now between his palms, still white-hot from its release, he tossed it to and fro between his restless hands. Roving feet guided him in a looping pace from one end of the tunnel walk to the other, even as time refused to budge. The Outsider returned to the peevish mannerisms that Corvo knew well enough to hate. "You aren't the only one surprised to find me here, Corvo. Milennia passed since I last visited this place. Karnaca is built on old bones, frought with fear and keening helplessness. Its strength comes from the surrendered weakness of the centuries before, where meted out sacrifices kept the tides at bay, the moon in the sky. The world was much newer then, more fragile. The people, more desperate. Easily beguiled. But times have changed, haven't they? Now you're here again. _I'm_ here again."

Corvo snorted. Time resumed, and he lowered the gun. Black smoke crawled up the roof of the tunnel. "Your words are poison, Outsider. You're the only one who wants to hear you speak. All these riddles tell me nothing." Corvo turned from him then, uninterested in hearing the patronizing drivel from a timeless artifact.

But the Outsider conjured no patience for letting him go. "Wait." A tinge of desperation followed the dead tone. The Outsider stumbled forward.

Pausing, curiosity caught up with him. The Outsider walked, and he remained in a place far beyond one of his heretical shrines. He existed here beyond dreams. But were the answers to such questions worth the inevitable temptation? Corvo ground his teeth. "Why are you here?"

When the Outsider drew closer, Corvo developed a keen awareness for his condition. The Outsider often looked dead - this, he knew - but beyond sallow cheekbones and blacked eyes lingered the deep ringlets of insomnia, of malnutrition. His frayed, dirtied, oversized shirt hung from his shoulders like a coat hanger. His feet, no longer bare of dirt, touched the ground. Corvo even caught the slow rise and fall of his chest. This was the same creature of the Void that informed him of liminal spaces - of pockets of existence that laced this world like an undercurrent, yet never fully interacted with reality. A perpetual separation of oil and water, the Outsider claimed that he could never enter Corvo's world. Only did he show himself in passing windows, in the breadth of his mind's eye, or when he pulled Corvo's consciousness into the unspooling, infinite Void.

"You're starting to remember." As Corvo listened, he found a thread of exhaustion in his voice. Human mannerisms stemming from a young man older than written history. "I told you once that I could never truly breech this part of reality. If I did, the Void would find another anchor point in this world. Like a bloodfly, it would pilfer and puncture this world, piece by piece, sewing its will into the latent possibilities of the lives here." His esoteric expression shifted perceptibly. "I've been usurped, Corvo. Displaced by hungry cunning into the world that pushed me out."

"And you expect me to do something about it."

"No." His exhaustion grew perceptively worse. "But I'm asking you to."


End file.
